Broken Beautiful
by Candelabra
Summary: Naruto watches Sasuke follow Itachi watching Naruto.  Some lessons simply need time before they are fully understood. [ItaNaru ... ish]


**Summary:** Naruto watches Sasuke follow Itachi watching Naruto. Some lessons just take awhile before they are fully understood.

**A/N:** ... I _think_ this is a rather different take on Itachi than usual. I don't know for sure. But it sort of came to me at about midnight last night, and I stayed up until 1:30 writing the first half (so if there's a sudden stylistic change near the end, you know why). Partly inspired by a fic by (I think?) Annwyd (in which Itachi watches Naruto during his training with Jiraiya ...), and partly inspired by someone who mentioned on a Naruto episode on youtube that Naruto looks way hot when he's sad. ::cough:: yes, I am inspired by strange things.

**WARNING!** This fic kind of contains ... ItaSasu, NaruSasu, ItaNaru elements ... if that disturbs you, you might want to leave now. It's not _really_ obvious, I don't think (except maybe the ItaNaru), so I dunno. But again, if you find the thought of any of those really disturbing ... yeah. You are forewarned. OH! And there's kind of a manga spoiler, close to the end, except that it's so quick that it's a blink-and-miss sort of deal. And it's not really very big.

**Disclaimer:** Be glad I don't own Naruto. It would be really strange if I did.

* * *

A dark forest clearing, lit only by the flickering, dancing tongues of the campfire. No moon, no stars.

Only the boy with so much light that he could be the sun, asleep.

_Foolish,_ thinks the watcher, the same cold disdain with which he seems to regard everything evident on his face. _I could take him now, and they would never know._

But in the same instant (and this time to himself) —

_Foolish. They would never let him out of their sight._

He is not worried that they will find him, unless he initiates the contact, which he won't. They aren't expecting him to be here — their minds are filled with thoughts of his little brother, wishing, hoping, dreaming ...

_He is dreaming._

_Shadows without face or name run past him. He knows them, though, in the same way one knows their own self — because they are part of him. Always, always, they are a part of him._

_In this way, I will make certain that I am never alone._

_Never, ever alone._

_Alone._

In his sleep, the boy moves, flinching, twisting in his sleeping bag.

Something moves in the red eyes of the watcher, something like surprise. Something about him ...

It is when the boy wakes with a muffled yell and that little pink-haired girl comes from wherever she was hidden away to ask what is wrong, to sooth him, that he realizes.

For just a moment, the boy reminded him of his little brother.

The thought makes a smile come to his lips as he turns to leave.

o.o.o.o.o

There is this to know about Naruto. He may be a happy, idiotic ball of sunshine, but he is as dark and tainted as any shinobi, any human. He is the one that never stops believing, the one who will stop at nothing to save a comrade.

He is a fool, but an honest, hopeful, loveable one.

He is also a monster, in more ways than one.

Naruto cannot let go. He lived the first years of his life with no one. When he finally found someone that he considered precious, he wanted to keep that someone forever. Even when that someone was never really his.

That someone belonged to Itachi, and perhaps Naruto's obsession with him was what brought Itachi to notice him in the first place. Before Akatsuki and Kyuubi and power, he noticed this boy, this stupid sunshine boy that wanted so desperately to have something of his own.

He saw his eyes look to Sasuke, as they looked to everyone in the village, and he smiled when Sasuke didn't look back. Sasuke only looked at him, eyes wide and curious and completely trusting.

Itachi looked back, but not at Sasuke; at the boy who had already turned away and was smiling and laughing in an effort to get someone, anyone to notice him, care for him.

_You can't have him,_ he thought. _This one is mine._

And it was true.

o.o.o.o.o

There is this to know about Itachi. He may be a terrible, monstrous being that murdered his own clan in cold blood, but he is very beautiful.

Because of this, or perhaps despite it, he has also an eye for beauty. One of the most beautiful things in the world is power, but it was not even this that really prompted him to destroy his clan.

It was partly his brother, and the way he looked when Itachi said "No, maybe tomorrow," when Fugaku said "Try harder. Be better."

He looked fragile, delicate ... like glass waiting to be shattered beneath Itachi's hand, and then put back together in a broken bloody mirror.

It was partly that other thing, those secrets, the fall of Clan Uchiha.

And it was partly that the first time he killed he looked at the red on his hand, in the mirror that showed his eyes, and thought they looked the same — beautiful.

He shattered Sasuke and put together the pieces in the way he wanted it, and told him things — lies, secrets — in order to break him just so. Break him so he could never love again.

Perhaps he knew what would come to pass. Perhaps he knew that the sunshine laughing boy who was turned away from everything would see this one, this dark shadow and try to teach him love again.

Perhaps he wanted to see the light broken more than the shadow.

o.o.o.o.o

It is late night, and he has come again to watch them. They sparred amongst themselves in the daylight, training, all their thoughts focused on what has become everything to their everything.

And now they sleep.

The boy is dreaming again, and he is watching, wanting to see if he's realized yet ...

_Running in circles past burning houses. "Where are you?" he calls, screams. There is no answer._

_All he can ever see is his back, but that's enough. All he can ever see are her broken dreams bleeding into his own, but that's enough because they are his, his, __his__, and they will never leave him alone again._

_Never._

o.o.o.o.o

Naruto used to think, stupidly, that he was important to Sasuke. That he and the rest of Team Seven had something special. He still believes it, most of the time. Still believes that there is a chance to bring it back.

But when night comes and he is lying and waiting, exhausted, for sleep to come, somewhere in the back of the mind he thinks that he is wrong.

There has only ever been one thing that is all-important and special to Sasuke. There is only one back that he is forever chasing. And it is entirely too similar to the back Naruto always sees.

Naruto hates having trouble falling asleep.

o.o.o.o.o

Itachi used to think that he would never find anything other than power that was more beautiful than his brother when he was training and trying to learn how to kill him. He used to think that the look on his brother's face, the one that told him that _yes, he's still mine, forever and ever, the fool,_ could not be replaced.

Now he is quite certain that he is wrong.

Naruto's face when he dreams of Sasuke — when he sees Sasuke — when he wakes and finds him no longer there —

One of longing. One of betrayed trust.

One of desperate, doomed hope.

So similar to Sasuke, and so different.

Itachi is beginning to regret that he will cause the death of this beautiful boy, but not so much that he would hesitate to do it. After all, power is still the most constant, dangerous and alluring beauty that can be found.

Not even the Kyuubi and his tainted sunshine container can rival it.

o.o.o.o.o

One night, the sunshine boy wakes — or thinks he wakes — and sees red eyes hovering over him. He whispers the name of the only one he can think it to be, unlikely, impossible that it might be.

The red-eyed man watches hope and joy spread across the boy's face when he says the word of his little brother, and feels almost nauseated — if he can even still properly feel, that is.

"No," he breathes into the boy's face. "He is not yours. He was never yours."

Because he is half asleep and half under the influence of Sharingan, the boy doesn't think to worry or panic at these words. But the joy falls away from his face, replaced by bitter disappointment, and the red-eyed watcher smiles.

"He left you alive for me," he whispers into the boy's ear. "Not for you, or even himself. For me. He has been and will always be mine."

He marvels at how the boy breaks — not with tears or angry words, but simply with a loss of life in his gaze. He can't deny it, can't refuse to believe it in this state.

Itachi surveys his worth with some satisfaction, and leaves without a whisper of sound before the others wake from their own Sharingan-induced sleep.

o.o.o.o.o

Itachi used to think that his brother was a fool, that he was useless and would never fulfil his purpose. He begins to suspect, after hearing about Valley of the End, after seeing the Kyuubi Jinchuuriki that believed himself to be Sasuke's best friend still alive and so beautifully broken by Sasuke's words. But it is only when Sasuke comes to meet him with handpicked teammates at his side, Orochimaru's curse vivid and ready for use on his neck, that Itachi realizes he is not so stupid after all.

Because Naruto is there too (like he was before). Sasuke ignores him (like before) — but it's different now, because he looks, he sees before he turns away.

And even when he's turned away, he's still watching, just a little. The elder Uchiha realizes that his little brother has been preparing for this moment for a long time, just for Itachi, just to show him that he's learned the lesson well.

Itachi graces his little brother with a smile, a nod of acknowledgment, because that's all he's really wanted in the first place. But he doesn't do it for Sasuke — he does it for Naruto, so that he can see that once again Sasuke has something he doesn't. Except that isn't true, because Sasuke knows full well that it's not for him, and anyway, he is giving Naruto exactly what Itachi has been giving him his entire life.

Practiced, careful ignoring, so that it hurts like a knife twisting in your gut. _I never cared,_ it says, _You're alone, alone, because I never cared._ Sasuke really has done what Itachi wanted — he has become him. It hurts him to do this, be like the man he has sworn to hate for the rest of his life, but buried beneath how many layers there is still a little-boy Sasuke willing to suffer this pain just to make his beloved Nee-san pleased.

Naruto knows nothing of this, but that's as it should be. It will hurt him more to not understand — it will be like salt poured into the open wound.

And that's how it should be. Sasuke has learned the lesson Itachi has been trying to teach him all along — that only beauty matters, and that the most beautiful things are broken beyond repair.

Itachi doubts that he will survive this. He doubts if any of them will. Idly, he wonders if their last teammate, the little pink girl, will even come close to their beauty when she, too, is broken.


End file.
